


All things warm

by LittleGreenPlasticSoldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Apple Pie, DFOTM, Dean's Flavor of the Month, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Injured Dean, Minor Injuries, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reference to a TedTalk!, Sex, Smut, Star Sign: Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:17:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5106053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier/pseuds/LittleGreenPlasticSoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rough hunt makes Dean take stock of what he truly has with you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All things warm

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted from my tumblr account and written for Dean’s Flavor of the Month Fics (#dfotm)- Cancer: Apple Pie.  
> Hosted by the fabulous @balthazars-muse
> 
> Relevant Cancerian characteristics: Tenacious, loyal, emotional, sympathetic, persuasive; suspicious, insecure; likes home-based hobbies, helping loved ones, a good meal with friends; dislikes Strangers, any criticism of Mom, revealing of personal life ([source](http://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-signs/cancer/))

Your phone rings and it’s Dean.  “Hey, I just put a pie in.”

“…Hi, Y/N.  That’s great.”

_Aw shit.  He sounds tired._

“What do you need? Is Sam okay?”

“Sam’s okay,” Dean says, the Impala purring in the background.  “Um, just… I’m cut.  He’s bruised but I think he’s scratch free-”

(“What’d'you mean you’re cut?”

“I got a cut-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s _fine_ -”)

“I’ll get some stuff set up.  How long?”

“Forty. Ish.”

“Okay, see you soon yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dean sighs.  “Thanks Y/N.”

* * *

You’re leaning against the stair rail as the Impala pulls in.  When Dean’s riding shotgun for an hour-long trip, you know it’s been rough.  He’s tired enough to get both feet on the floor before trying to stand. Sam gets a bag out of the car before coming around to you, his shoulders seeming to slip off his frame.

“Got ice packs in your room, Sam,” you say.  “Some food too.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” he sighs heavily, reaching across your front for a sideways hug and kiss to your head.  “You’re a God-send.  Probably literally,” he mutters and drags himself off for some self-care.

Dean does his best to stand silently.  You get to him before he starts walking.  

First you notice the drizzle of blood behind his ear, something that’s trickled down from within his hair.  Then you help yourself to a peek under his jacket and flannel shirt to see the damage.  There’s some palm-sized gauze under his t-shirt, adhered by his blood, high on his chest.  You can’t help but deliver a flat glance of admonishment: chances are, this is something Sam should’ve seen to before they started driving.  Dean doesn’t really respond, but he can taste the flavour of your mood.

“You need something to lean on?” you offer.

“Naw, I’ll manage.”

“Leave the bags.  I’m set up in your room.”

You quietly escort him down the corridors.  “Why my room?” he asks.

“Only a few feet from your bed,” you explain.  “You sounded tired.”

His hand lands low on your back, almost resting on your hip, almost holding onto your shirt.

He stands in his room looking at what’s set up and toes off his boots. From behind, you remove his jacket for him so he doesn’t have to move his arms.  “How much more damage am I gunna find?”

“Uuh, dunno,.. pretty sore I guess.”

There’s a lot of red in the tartan pattern of his shirt, but it doesn’t hide the stains.  Once that’s gone and the grey T-shirt is bare you can see at least five decent bloodied scratches on his back, three of them under torn fabric.  “The shirt’s ruined. I’m cutting it off.”

“Settle down, Y/N,” he says, the first joking tone you’ve heard from him in at least a week.  “I can get my shirt off.”

“You can’t lift your arm very well, can you?” you look at him as you get the scissors.  He doesn’t even have the energy to argue.

Snipping the shirt up his spine, you slide the soft cotton off his shoulders, down his arms and let it fall on his toes.  “No stitches back here,” you report.  “Sit on the chair so I can swab and dress them.”

He turns the chair and sits himself sideways, with an arm over the back, so you have easy access from the bed, and you arrange things by you to clean and cover the marks.  He rests his head in his hand while you work.

Minutes tick away over the quiet sounds of liquid, dabbing, and deep breathing interrupted with flinches.  Most times you’re silent when you patch him up, tired or not.  But this time he says “They’d already turned the mom… and the eldest son.”

You rest a hand on a clean patch of skin, over his left shoulder, as you wipe, and let your thumb rub back and forth a few times.  His fingers drop over yours.  After a while you need your hand again to go on with the cleaning and covering.

“Hokay,” you exhale.  “You want the next part here, or on the bed?”

“Here’s fine.”  Dean shuffles around and you stop him as he comes square with the chair so you can see the cut on the side of his head.  He’s sitting near enough that your right leg bends out almost parallel to his, but even this close you turn on the bedside lamp and arrange it for better lighting.

As you clean away the blood, working your way up his scalp to the cut itself, you can see him frowning in thought.  “It’s not on you, you know.”

“Yeah,” he says grimly, too automatically for him to have listened.

“Well?”

“I just took us a while,” he says, “to find them.  We were, like, at least a day late.  Saving those two was definitely possible.”

“Well, no, it wasn’t,” you correct, “because you didn’t faff around in bars or take the scenic route.  When you found that case you were on the road and getting info from me as you drove.  Where, exactly, did you schedule in a wasted day?”

“But if we’d found-”

“What did Sam do that was such a handicap?”

“What? Nothing, he was as good as ever.”

“Did you make him change his mind about anything?”

“No.”

“Should he have made you do something different?”

Dean looks at you, pissy and petulant as much as he can muster.  “…No.”

“So you wouldn’t pin this on him?”

“No, Y/N, it’s just that-” he says but you cut him off by taking his head in both hands and facing it forwards again.

“Then no ifs.  Knock it off,” you scold.  You leave your left hand there, cupping the back of his head, while you go back to cleaning…  “No one thinks you came up short and you’re a fool if you disagree.”

He takes a resigning breath and let his eyes fall shut.

Under your palm the short stubble of his hairline shifts on your skin, all prickles and velvet.  Again your thumb gives away some comfort, brushing back and forth as you work.  His right hand lands on your knee, heavy with warmth and loose.

You decide to start on the big cut on the front of his shoulder, using saline to soak away the crusted gauze and wash the site.  His eyes crinkle, but that’s all the wince he gives.  Soon enough, you start to stitch…

“I remember when you first started with us,” Dean says.  You hadn’t noticed him open his eyes, but he’s looking around his knees and over at his hand on your leg.  “I felt so bad that we’d taken you from your old life-”

“You didn’t take me; I came.”

“Well, you left that fiancé behind.  It seemed like a life.”

“It wasn’t that great.  And he wasn’t that good at all.”

“No… actually, I do remember you mentioning something about a close call,” he commented and thought for a while longer.

“God, he was average,” you say, shaking your head.  You can’t help but chuckle, and you stop working to see a few of Dean’s teeth show up. “You have any idea what you saved me from?  He was a least remarkable man in town, and I’d just, _just_ started thinking about how hot I was for Daniel Lountree in high school and wondering what the hell I was so afraid of with him.”

“Was he on the football team?”

“No, he wasn’t in school at all.  He helped his Dad run the hardware store and, Dean, the man freaking _belonged_ amongst the hardware.”

Dean grinned for you, his chest bouncing silently.  “Good with his tools?”

“Ha. My friends used to tease me ‘Good with the wood, handy with a hammer, go give him something to nail.’  God damn…”

Dean laughed aloud at the joke, and your awkwardness.

“They gave me endless shit,” you confessed.  “But it doesn’t really matter.  It wasn’t meant to be.”

You went back to your stitching and Dean found his place in his thoughts. “I felt guilty for a long time about you being here… but you seemed so happy.”

“I am.”

“I just couldn’t figure out why keeping house and mending us and being stuck with the research, and then when other hunters started calling on you… why would anyone choose it, you know?”

“You choose it every day,” you say, preparing the padded plaster for the finished wound.

“No,” he rubs his thumb on your jeans a bit. “Not any more.  Well, really, not ever.”

“Yeah, you’d totally leave it up to someone else to do…”

“Yeah alright-”

“Well, maybe you would prefer something different, but this is for me.  Face me?”

Dean turns his chair so that he’s facing you for the few scratches around his torso.  He sit up a bit and pulls the seat forward so you can better reach and tries to rest symmetrically, his knees wide around yours.  

“Does your head hurt? I’ve got some pain killers there if you need,” you nod at the desk.  

Dean turns a little to look and spies the bowl-covered plate.

“Is that…” he looks at you, a bit of spark coming back to him.  “Is that the pie?”

You grin at him.  “Of course it’s the pie.”

“Sweet Jesus, you are good.”

He reaches back to remove the bowl and collects the plate and fork. Placing it carefully in his right hand, the side he can’t move as well, he starts cutting and shovelling and stops on the second bite to moan.  “Oh! Ohm,” he takes a deep breath in and out as he chews and shakes his head when he says around his food “Oh! Life.”

You let the sight of him refuelling, the satisfaction of your food giving him strength, wash you warm like it does when they do this.  There have been many times when you’ve leaned on the kitchen bench to watch Sam and Dean devour whatever you’ve prepared, the pair usually too hungry to speak and then full of praise when they’re done.  

They’re easy to care for.  Dean especially when these comforts and gestures seem to be the core of whatever gives him normalcy, or even humanity, and he always returns the gesture somehow.  The only pang you ever felt was when Dean stopped giving you those sideways hugs.  It was strange, not only because you couldn’t see why he’d retracted them, but because that was when Sam started kissing you on the head.  In their place, you found yourself scavenging any teeny gesture from Dean, like the hand on the back, of his hand on your leg.  So often his hand on something, just quick, a short rub, so cursory.  But still, he’d do something.

“You make a damn good apple pie, Y/N,” Dean says, putting the dish back on the bench.  “High praise for America’s favourite.”

“Would you believe, it’s actually not the favourite.  It’s just the most popular,” you say, starting to clean the last of his cuts.  “It sells the best in family sizes coz it’s everyone’s _second_ favourite, and no one hates it.  Single-serve apple pies just don’t fly off the shelves like that.”

“Now where did you hear that?” Dean asks.  

“It’s true,” you insist, smiling because he’s smiling.

You’re pretty much done, but take your time to pack things away because it’s nice to have him this close.

“Do you remember,” Dean asks as you tidy, “How you helped when we met you?  You remember how ferocious you were?”

You don’t really answer but raise your eyebrows at him because, yeah, you remember.  He looks at you for a response so you say “I was angry. You were nice people, coming to help us, and they were assholes.”

“They’d already…” he puts the empty plate back on the desk and looks at you steadily. “You were the only one left.  And you still got between me and the monster.”

“I was very angry,” you say calmly.

Dean pauses for a moment, then says “You would’ve made an awesome hunter, Y/N, but I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about you getting between me and monsters like you did that night.”  

You smile slightly at him, feeling your nerves beginning to ring at all this direct attention, and go to stand with all the mending guff in your hands.  But Dean wraps his hands over it all, takes it from you and places it by the plate on the desk.

“Wait,” he says, “I have to ask you something.”

“I thought you were tired.  What’s with all-”

“I am, but this is important.  This is what I wanted to ask at the start,” he resettles and squares you with his gaze.  “You started looking at me differently a few weeks ago.  Did I do something to upset you?”

“No!” you burst.  “No, it was me.”   _Dang_ , you think, _that was a bit honest,_ because you’d just gone and confessed that you know what he’s on about.  This being stuck between his legs was really quite unfair.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you close your eyes and shake your head, once again unable to maintain the intensity of this.  

Dean leans forward so his elbows rest on his knees, his hands in your lap, which brings his gaze about a foot away from your face.

“What changed?”

“Oh,” you look at your hands, tucked high in your lap, and his in front of them “it doesn’t really matter-”

“Yes, it does,” he says firmly.  “When I saw that guy grieve for his wife, having watched her die _twice_ , all I wanted to do was get home, to you and your food, have you mend me.  So it matters.  You look at me half as often as you used to.  Why?”

But you are looking at him, like you do when you’re alone and he’s in your mind’s eye going through all the things you feel him feel, wishing he would hand it over to you.  You don’t even start to wrap your head around what he just said – it slips passed you, all that goodness, and you get caught on the question.

You play it down, albeit quiet matter-of-factly. “Oh, I just, I usually keep my bedroom thoughts in the bedroom and work thoughts everywhere else and I just,” you wave your hand a bit, frowning to brush it off, “I just mixed them up one day… went and had a bedroom thought in the kitchen.”

Before he can say what he thinks about that, you get back to the point. “I’m so sorry,” you look into his face earnestly, hands taking his.  This carefully cultivated arrangement you’ve made – one where you get to be there for them and so near Dean without asking anything of him – it’s been threatened because you couldn’t manage yourself. “I forgot to make it so it didn’t change anything.  I hate that I… I mean, I don’t know how I looked at you before-”

“Before, it was like you reached across the room and held my hand,” he squeezes your fingers, “like you were there for me, right there with me.”  He says it hard, with his jaw, and you ache for what you’ve taken away.  

“I’m sorry-”

“No, but I remember that day.  You’d made a pie, right?”

“Yeah-”

“That day, it wasn’t like you were reaching for my hand.  I remember it, we came back from a hunt and we’d turned up second, the whole thing done already-”

“Yeah.  I was relieved-”

“You looked at me like this,” he says, taking your hand up to his cheek, placing it so your fingers are over his ear.  “It held me, Y/N.” He places his hand over yours and keeps it there as he leans towards you, propping his weight on your thigh, the heat of his palms spreading over your leg and up your arm.  “And then I didn’t see it again.  Please… don’t stop looking a me.”

You take a breath and cup his jaw with your other hand.  “I won’t,” you say, “I won’t stop.”

He moves the last inches so his lips land on yours and that heat spreads across your face too, melting down your throat, sliding down your sternum and dripping into your lap.  

His lips feel so full and warm, and it’s exactly as you’d hoped so for a moment you just collect everything you can feel and store it away.

“I want you,” he says, inches away, gaze flicking over your face, “I’ve come to need the way you look after me, but what I want…”

He leaves your hand where it is and grazes his knuckles over the rise of your cheek, then over your hair, and takes your waist in a hard grip as he clenches his jaw for a tight breath, trying to explain himself like it’s the only chance he’ll get.  

“Me too,” you say quietly.  “I need you and Sam.  You’re my family now.  But I want you.”

He moves forward abruptly and kisses.  The impact knocks you back a bit and he doesn’t lick or gesture, just opens his lips to breathe and talk against your lips “Thank God… I’m sorry I took so long to ask.”

“That’s oka-” Dean darts, tiling to take your open mouth with his, fervently kissing and tasting you, over and over.  His tongue is deft and caressing, but he can’t hide his desperation and it isn’t anything like the charming or erotic times you’d guess other’s had experienced.  His hands grip you tightly and his breath fans over your cheek.  

You feel both his hands slide down your thighs and hook under your knees. He lifts your legs and drops his own, placing yours outside his as he kneels before you, his kisses only easing enough for you to open your eyes.  He watches you too as he slides you forward off the bed and onto his legs, lips still lapping, your hands still on holding his head, and he has an arm up your back to draw you close to his bare, burning torso.

With your elbows tucked into his chest, you inhale and hum at the feel of him against you, his rough tongue seeking out yours, soft lips encouraging more of you.  Then you slip your hands up and around his neck, carefully avoiding the tender skin, and press him against you with all the strength you can use.  He answers you with his own, helping you get closer and pulling on your hip, breathing deeply at the gesture.  You break out of the kiss noisily as you feel his hardness rub against your lips, rolling up and down your clit almost too firmly.

Dean presses his forehead to your face and rolls your head with it.  “I wanna thank you, Y/N,” he sighs, “take care of you the way you take care of me.”

“You gonna make me a pie?”

He smiles, “Oh I have a lot of good pie to be thankful for.”

“Well,” you smile back, “the way you eat your pie is usually thanks enough.”

He lifts you up, muttering "Stand up for us", and you almost tell him off for testing his cuts, but he’s working on your jeans with a speed you’ve never seen and you haven’t yet got your heels down before he’s yanking on the denim.  He helps you slip them off your feet, then slows, slows right down, and looks up at you as he slides his hot palms up your legs.  “Wanna thank you like that now,” his fingers get to your panties and you see him look at where he’s aiming, taking in the shapes of what’s been hidden all this time. “Can I?”

You feel like you’re blushing all over and you take so long to reply he adds, “Just a bit.”

You hum, or moan, or make a noise when you chew your lip, or something, but there’s only two things your brain can handle right now: the view of his fingers tucking into your panties and the thought of your hands on Dean’s head between your legs.

Seconds later it’s the truth.  Except you’ve closed your eyes and blanked out all else because his tongue is between your folds, licking and tasting. Then you feel his fingers holding you open and you push your fingertips down his scalp.  His hand slaps lightly onto your cheek, squeezing large, pushing you against him and he tucks himself into your wetness to lick harder and suck.

That’s when you cry out, some word or noise of surprise and you have to see. He looks up at you, nose deep and all you can do is hold his head, close your eyes again and say “Oh _God._ ”

He wraps his other arm around both thighs to help you balance.  He moans at you, the vibration of it making you suck air, and he starts flicking at your clit.  

Straight away you know what you want.  “Stop,” you pant, “Dean stop.”

“What, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you lean down and moan as you taste yourself on his face, holding his head in your hands as he kneels around you.  “Do that another time, I want you.”

“Can’t I-”

“No,” you’ve worked your panties off your ankles and you settle down to straddle him near his knees, working on getting his jeans down some. “No, please,” you plead it into his mouth, “I want you close, now, all of you, as close as you can.”

He slides you off his lap and reaches over to his night stand to dig out a condom.  When he lowers his jeans to get the protection on and you push the fabric and belt down as far as you can.  He sits back down and reaches out for your hips, snatching you close as soon as you’re in his hold and ruts against your wetness.

He pulls up your t-shirt with one hand, reaches around for the bra clasp and helps you get free.  Your kisses begin to stop and start with your breathing because, as much as you want to taste each other, the nearness and the speed of it, your urgency, has you moaning and huffing too hard.  

Dean rubs his palms up and down your back and pulls you against him.  He leans back to look down, drags his fingers from collar bone to hip before he takes himself in hand and urges you upward.  You kneel and angle and when he locks himself into that dint you look at him already watching you.  He grabs hold of the back of your head, then your hip, and gazes at you as you ease downwards.  With everything, you want to keep your eyes open, but you just can’t and hope he doesn’t mind.

“Oh God, Y/N,” he moans, chin tilted up to yours as you run your mind over the feel of him in you, wide and hard and hot.  “I could watch that every hour.”

“You,” you pant through closed eyes.  You want to say something back but… “You are taking really good care of me, Dean.”

He waits for you to settle and find your place and you take your time, breathing through a long moment of awareness that Dean is inside you, around you and before you.  Then the sight of him, looking up for you with a face more peaceful than you’ve seen in weeks, softer than you’ve dreamed, has your fingertips mapping the curves and lines.  He shuts his eyes to feel it, all your gentle affection trickling over his face and washing away all the time he’s gone without someone there for him like this.  It gathers into brushing strokes and you kiss him again, pulling his head to yours.  

With an arm around your waist and the other up between your shoulder blades, his embrace holds you firmly and he rolls his hips upward. It makes you gasp sharply.  He angles your head and pulls you against him, kissing as he rolls again, smearing his curls over your own, and your moan whimpers inside the kiss.  He keeps moving in you and although your lips are moulded together you manage to break the seal and get the air you need, moaning again as he surges.  

With some effort, Dean manoeuvres you both, pinning you against him so he can move you as one, and rocks back on his toes so he can stand enough to sit in the chair.  As he moves, his jeans and belt fall past his knees and he gets them off with his feet.  You lean back a bit as he does, stroking his face again, unconsciously checking the plasters.

“You doin’ okay?” you check, the words almost unconscious.

“Yeah I’m fine,” he says as he leans up, open mouthed and intent on tasting you again.  He moves his arm from up your back and slides it over your shoulder, dragging an open palm around your neck and down your chest, letting his palm drag lightly over your nipple before cupping it with heat.  This time you notice the noise you make, just like you did at the kiss; a little hum of surprise, as though every time he gives you his affection like that you can’t believe it.

His palm grazes your nipple in small circles, dragging his fingertips down the slope to collect and tug, and he starts rocking into you with earnest.  His hand on your hip guides you, forces you, to take all the angles and thickness, all your swollen heat pushing against his bones.  

He tugs your nipple again.  Again your throat aches and you can’t keep on with the kissing.  You lean back and start to work yourself against him, placing a palm on the side of his neck to anchor yourself.  His thumb brushes over your lips, heavy and blushing, and he holds you much the same way, stroking your cheek when you nudge into it.  

He leans in to lick and suck on your breast, lapping the nipple into his mouth.  This time he tugs on you just to hear you react, and he moans right back at you.

“God, Y/N, I’ve imagined this,” he says.

You look at him, trying to fit that thought into your head amongst everything else you’re feeling.  “You’ve imagined me?” you pant. He’s starting to shine, right there in front of you, because you’re with him like this.

“Of course I have,” he puffs, he slides his hands up your waist and over your breasts, ghosting over their shape and back to your ribs, holding you to push a few times and watch you try to keep your eyes open.  “All of this,” he says, “I only guessed, Y/N, at how beautiful you are.”

Dean leans up and takes your lower lip between his, rolling you on him with his hold a few times, listening to your gasps.  He wraps an arm around you again and grabs your hip, then stands, steps to the bed and lays you down with your head near the pillows.  Instantly the change in weight and angles has you aching and grabbing at him, Dean moaning with his forehead on your chin.  You wrap your legs around his waist and let him thrust into you a few times, but you’re distracted by the way he keeps shifting his arms to support himself.

“Roll over,” you puff.

“It’s okay, I’ll-”

“You’re injured,” you insist, holding his head, “roll us over.”

He relents, sliding an arm under your neck and pulling you above him. You sit back and adjust a little, wrap your fingers over his hands as he squeezes at your waist again.

“I couldn'a dreamed your noises though,” he breathes.  

“I didn’t think I was being that loud,” you say, gently smiling at him.

“No, not loud,” he smiles back, undulating beneath you, “but not silent.  It’s like… you’re telling me secrets.”

“I am,” you smile broadly, and lean down to kiss and nibble as you quietly explain.  “Nobody knows how much I’ve wanted you,” you share, keeping some sort of rhythm on him.

“Really?”

“Of course,” you kiss around his cheeks and jaw, caressing his hair as you lean on your elbows.  “Only ghosts with the best hearing have caught me saying your name at night.  I haven’t said another since I met you.”

You feel his smile grow and look at him properly to smile back. “Honestly,” you say, “I’ve imagined you too… everywhere.”

“Like this?” he asks, lifting your hips a little and pushing himself up into you.

Instantly it feels different, triggering, and your leaning your head and closing your eyes.  “Yes,” you breathe back.

He holds you a little higher and moves his feet, starting to thrust up and you gasp and _Aah!_ at it.

“This the way you want us?” he asks, voice bouncing slightly as he moves.

“Yes,” you frown at the sensations.

“You and me.”

“Yes, Dean, every night.” You nuzzle him, and plead breathlessly, “ _Dean_ …”

“I gotcha-”

“Please don’t stop,” you gasp, your forehead pressing on his.

“You got it.  Come'ere,” he murmurs and tilts to catch your lips with his as he holds your hips hard and snaps into you, stroking your g-spot relentlessly and breathing in each desperate moan you have. Your pitch climbs as the heat and vibrations in the core of you grow and ripple.  Dean’s grunts and panting groans drag you to your edge. His hips stutter, his effort doubling shortly as he reaches deep into you, but it’s his words -  a trembling “uu-uh, _Y/N_ ,” - that tip you over.  You cry out, latching onto his mouth to quiet yourself, and he pulls your pelvis onto him, falling those few inches onto the bed, so he can hold your head in his hands and kiss you as you push and flutter and flush around him, all your heat sweeping over you.

Both of you slide your hands over each other, Dean guiding your knee down so he can roll you both to your sides.  He pulls you close by the waist, your kissing and bodies moving in kind.  You slowly lose momentum and settle into a woven hold, nose to nose, slippery and sated.

When he slips out, Dean cleans himself up but as soon as the bare minimum is done you’re guiding him back to the sheets and pulling the blankets over him as you rise.

“Sleep,” you say.  “Rest as long as you need.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere, I’m just going to clean up a bit.”  

“No, leave it,” he says, pulling you insistently.  “Please, leave it and lay down with me.”

You tsk but give in easily: Nothing waiting is that urgent.

“Tell me about your bedroom thought from the kitchen,” he says, tucking your hips into his as he wraps his arm around you.

“It’s nothing too special,” you say, nuzzling backwards and turning enough to feel his lips by your ear.

“Tell me anyway,” he says, tingling your skin with his tenor.  “Food fight? Licking cream off fingers? What?”

“Mmm,” you smile, “No, just… I get the pie out of the oven, cut a piece and serve it up for you… and you say you’d rather have me.”

He smiles against you, nuzzling into your hair, chuckling a bit at the thought.  You begin to doubt yourself but he adds, his words starting to slur “I would, Y/N, any day o'the week, any pie on earth… Easy.”

“Really?” you say, feeling a little silly for having held his love for pie in such reverence.

“Not even a choice, Y/N.  To keep you,” he says, beginning to rest and soften around you, “happily give up pie… jus’ about anything really…”

His body gives into the last ebbing thoughts of his day and you squeeze his hand in yours.  “Don’t worry,” you say to his subconscious. “I’ll stay here.  You won’t have to give up anything for me…”

**Author's Note:**

> (Reference for the apple pie is not the favourite bit, coz I know ya’ll ain’t gonna believe me: [Kenneth Cukier ted talk transcript](https://www.ted.com/talks/kenneth_cukier_big_data_is_better_data/transcript?language=en))


End file.
